Short answer. Yes. Article 2014 lets any loser in a game of chance recover his loss from the winner, with legal interest from the time he paid the amount lost, and subsidiarily from the operator or manager of the gambling house. The winner, by contrast, cannot sue to collect.
What the law says
No action can be maintained by the winner for the collection of what he has won in a game of chance. But any loser in a game of chance may recover his loss from the winner, with legal interest from the time he paid the amount lost, and subsidiarily from the operator or manager of the gambling house.
Civil Code, Article 2014 — No Recovery of Gambling Winnings. Read the full provision →
The law is deliberately one-sided
Article 2014 provides that No action can be maintained by the winner for the collection of what he has won in a game of chance. But any loser in a game of chance may recover his loss from the winner, with legal interest from the time he paid the amount lost, and subsidiarily from the operator or manager of the gambling house. The asymmetry is the policy. Courts are closed to the winner who wants to enforce a gambling debt, and opened to the loser who wants his money back, so that the machinery of the law never lends its weight to collecting on a game of chance.
Three features worth noticing
The claim carries legal interest, and it runs not from demand or from filing but from the time the loser paid the amount lost, which on a long-running series of losses makes the dates of payment part of the computation. The right belongs to any loser, without an enquiry into whether he played willingly or knew what he was doing. And liability is subsidiary as well as direct: where the winner cannot answer, the operator or manager of the gambling house does, which is what gives the remedy practical value when the winner has vanished.
Which games this covers
Article 2013 supplies the definition. A game of chance is one that depends more on chance or hazard than on skill or ability, and for the purposes of these articles, in case of doubt a game is deemed to be one of chance. That last clause is the practical one. Where the parties argue about whether a particular game turned on skill, the doubt is resolved in favour of treating it as chance, so the burden of showing genuine skill dominance falls on the person resisting recovery rather than on the loser seeking it.
Cheating, and who else may sue
Article 2015 addresses fraud in the game: where cheating or deceit is committed by the winner, he, and subsidiarily the operator or manager of the gambling house, pays by way of exemplary damages not less than the equivalent of the sum lost, in addition to that amount. But where both the winner and the loser perpetrated fraud, no action for recovery may be brought by either. Article 2016 lets the loser's creditors, spouse, descendants or others entitled to support institute the action if he refuses or neglects to, with the proceeds applied to their claims or to support.
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 2014 — No Recovery of Gambling Winnings
- Civil Code, Article 2013 — Game of Chance Defined
- Civil Code, Article 2015 — Cheating in Gambling
- Civil Code, Article 2016 — Recovery by the Loser's Dependents